Breaking – Bitcoin soars to record high value

The virtual currency Bitcoin’s has reached a record high, following a month of turmoil with new value of $3,451.86 (£2,651) per coin in Monday trade, according to the Coindesk Bitcoin Price Index.

The virtual currency Bitcoin has never crossed the $3,000 mark until the weekend. According to coindesk current market value of all bitcoins in existence has now surpassed $56bn (£43bn).

This recent surge of prices followed the creation of a spin-off crypto-currency, from the popular Bitcoin now knon as Bitcoin Cash, last weekend.

The new asset Bitcoin Cash is trading well below the peak price of $727.54 (£557) per coin it attained on 2 August.

However, Bitcoin Cash’s future does appear to be more assured after Coinbase, one of the leading exchange and wallet services, promised to support it after previously refusing to give such a commitment.

“We are planning to have support for Bitcoin Cash by 1 January 2018, assuming no additional risks emerge during that time,” it announced on its blog.

Bitcoin fork

The value of the original Bitcoin experienced big swings in July. First there was concern that there might be a “civil war” over rival plans to speed up transactions.

That helped cause its value to dip to $1,938.94 (£1,485) on 16 July before a compromise scheme called Segwit2x gained favour.

Then a fresh plan to fork the currency emerged from a group of insiders unhappy with the Segwit2x initiative.

On 1 August, they offered investors a Bitcoin Cash token to match every original Bitcoin token they owned. The move created an incompatible version of the blockchain ledger, which keeps track of past transactions.

The initiative had the potential to undermine the original Bitcoin, particularly if many miners had jumped ship.

Miners provide the computer processing power to authorise transactions, and Bitcoin Cash was designed to appeal to their interests.